Pop queen, power broker, hater vanquisher—Taylor Swift’s star has never been brighter. On a trip to her childhood home, she wonders: What (on earth) will she do next?

BY NOW YOU KNOW that the past few years have been extraordinary ones in the life of Taylor Swift. Even if you have only casual knowledge of Swift’s music—there may be six or seven souls left on the planet who can’t sing all the words to “Shake It Off”—you’re aware that Swift has become not only one of the most successful recording artists ever, but also an unrivaled power broker who has prevailed in a volatile media economy and brought today’s music overlords to heel. Swift’s 2015 stare-down of Apple—she declined to put her hit album 1989 on Apple’s nascent streaming-music service when the company said it would not pay artists during its initial launch; Apple changed its policy immediately and paid everyone—was a seismic example of a single artist’s toppling corporate might. At 26, Swift is world famous, wealthy, critically celebrated, a style influencer, and a cultural movement unto herself, recognizable everywhere she goes. She also has two awesome cats.

And yet today, in this chapel atop a hill in Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift is none of those things. She is the maid of honor at the wedding of her childhood friend Britany Maack. Swift and Maack have known each other since Swift was ten days old and have stayed close—there are grainy home videos of the two romping around a crib together and, more recently, photos of them sitting side by side at the 2014 Grammys. Last spring, after Swift accepted Britany’s invitation to be maid of honor via Instagram—kids today!—she took Maack to Reem Acra, where Britany got fitted for her custom hand-embroidered silk-taffeta wedding gown and Taylor for the blush-pink, cap-sleeved chiffon maid-of-honor dress that she has on today (the fitting was also Instagrammed, naturally). Swift has even known the groom, Benjamin LaManna, since kindergarten—she admits to having had a little crush on Ben way back then, when he was “that kid who sat next to me in class with the bowl cut and the Lego lunch box.”

Taylor Swift will settle any future misunderstandings offline after clashing with Nicki Minaj on Twitter earlier this year, the singer has told NME.

NME spoke to Swift for the exclusive cover feature in this week’s magazine (available free in the UK from Friday, October 9), covering topics including her huge success with latest album ‘1989’, her special-guest filled stadium tour, her role in the public eye and her relationships with fellow pop stars.

Swift and Minaj clashed earlier this year after the former mistook rapper Minaj’s wide ranging criticism of the MTV VMAs to be specifically about her. Asked about the incident by NME, Swift was reluctant to discuss things further but did explain how she intends to deal with similar conflicts in future.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “But I send text messages now. If there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding, I go to someone’s management, I get their number and I text them. It’s an important lesson for anyone to learn in 2015.”

Swift also spoke about her friendship with Kanye West, and said that while in her company, Kanye revealed himself to be a fan of the Beck album he’d been upset about winning a Grammy Award over Beyonce earlier this year.

“Me and Kanye are on such good terms now, six years later,” says Swift. “It took a while… But I had to tell Beck this story earlier. I was at dinner with Kanye a week after the Grammys, he stops what he’s saying and he goes, ‘What is this song? I need to listen to this every day.’ I said, ‘It’s Beck, it’s on an album called ‘Morning Phase’, I think you’ve heard of it…’ We just burst out laughing. And he says, ‘Hey, sometimes I’m wrong.’”

In Vanity Fair’s September cover story, the global pop princess tells writer Josh Duboff about the past year of her life, including her new laid-back attitude toward dating, why her female friendships trump all, and her willingness to take on tech giants.

Taylor Swift’s recent missive to Apple—the one that caused the tech behemoth to reverse course, once again demonstrating her world-beating pop power—came after some late-night soul searching, the singer tells Vanity Fair writer Josh Duboff, in the magazine’s September cover story.

“I wrote the letter at around four A.M.,” Swift says. “The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term ‘zero percent compensation to rights holders.’ Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.”

Dazzling, self-assured, and ferociously talented, Taylor Swift is the world’s most relevant and intriguing woman. Now what will she do for an encore?

Taylor Swift is the quintessential American success story: Armed with little more than a guitar, a boatload of ambition, and an uncanny knack for creating a proliferation of perfect pop songs, Swift has spent a decade engineering her own perfectly executed rise from that storied Pennsylvania Christmas-tree farm to the covers of magazines like this one. (So many magazines…) The past 12 months mark Swift’s best year ever, she says: She became tourism ambassador for her adopted hometown of New York, playfully satirized tabloid perceptions of her, and pivoted from her country roots to debut her first-ever pop album, earning the Billboard Woman of the Year award for the second time and assuming her rightful role among a small circle of international superstars. Swift breaks album sales records like lesser pop stars break hearts, all while somehow retaining the same wide-eyed charm that made her so likable in the first place. She is also deeply unconcerned with whether or not you consider her attractive, which of course only makes her more so. We spoke with Swift, as she wrapped up the last day of her 1989 tour rehearsals, about life on the road, feminism, and what it feels like to be named by Maxim the most talented woman alive.

How does it feel being named No. 1?
It’s really nice and such an incredible compliment. This year has been my favorite year of my life so far. I got to make an album exactly the way I wanted to make it. I got to put it out exactly the way that I dreamed of putting it out. Every one of these kinds of whims and ideas came to fruition. The videos—I’m proud of those, I’m proud of the tour, I’m proud of the way this has all happened. In the midst of all that, this is really nice. It really feels like a wonderful celebration of my favorite year.

You’re getting ready to go on tour for “1989.” What are you doing to prepare?
We’ve been in rehearsals for months, trying to get the live instrumental versions of these songs to as close to the album sounds as possible. And also you’re lengthening things, creating mash- ups with things. It was fun to play around and get everything sonically right before we got on the actual stage and started doing the choreography. But before all that—probably close to a year ago—we started setting the stage, so that was when the drawing started. Now all we have to do is actually…do the tour.

Given all that, how do you make time for all your friendships? It seems like everyone is your best friend. Can I be your best friend?
[Laughs] Thankfully, 10 years into my career now, I’ve learned how to work in a smarter way. You have to have time to breathe and have a happy life, and friendships are so important to me. Thankfully—thanks to the fans—now we get to play stadiums, so we do two or three stadium shows a week. I’ll see my friends in whichever city I’m closer to.

You’ve become more vocal about feminism recently. What changed?
Honestly, I didn’t have an accurate definition of feminism when I was younger. I didn’t quite see all the ways that feminism is vital to growing up in the world we live in. I think that when I used to say, “Oh, feminism’s not really on my radar,” it was because when I was just seen as a kid, I wasn’t as threatening. I didn’t see myself being held back until I was a woman. Or the double standards in headlines, the double standards in the way stories are told, the double standards in the way things are perceived. A man writing about his feelings from a vulnerable place is brave; a woman writing about her feelings from a vulnerable place is oversharing or whining. Misogyny is ingrained in people from the time they are born. So to me, feminism is probably the most important movement that you could embrace, because it’s just basically another word for equality.

Over the course of her career, Taylor Swift has transformed from a teenage country crooner into an international pop-singing sensation. It wasn’t until the past couple of years, however, that Swift gained recognition as a fashion icon. Today, she’s got a style that’s all her own, from that wispy blonde bob to her signature cat eye and cherry red lips.

One thing that’s remained a constant source of speculation since last spring, though, is Taylor Swift’s belly button. While there is much mystery surrounding the status of Swift’s navel, the internet continues to wonder: Is it pierced? Is she secretly Kyle XY? Finally, the singer (and our December/January cover star!) finally has something to say about the matter in our upcoming issue!

“I don’t like showing my belly button. When you start showing your belly button then you’re really committing to the midriff thing. I only partially commit to the midriff thing—you’re only seeing lower rib cage. I don’t want people to know if I have one or not.” She laughs. “I want that to be a mystery. As far as anyone knows based on my public appearances, they haven’t seen evidence of a belly button. It could be pierced. They have no idea. If I’m going to get some sort of massive tattoo, it’s going to be right next to my belly button because no one’s ever going to see that.”

And there you have it—Taylor Swift, the mastermind, is deliberately messing with us all. Curious to know more? Check out our December/January issue, hitting stands next week!

Born on December 13, 1989, in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Taylor Swift started crafting songs at age 5, and at age 16, released her debut album. She has won many awards, including several Grammy Awards, and modeled for Cover Girl.

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